After 3 years and 5 months at Google, time has come for me to move on to my next
adventure. Yesterday was my last day at Google. I will be moving back to
Romania, where my wife still has one year of university left.

On one hand, I'm super excited about the changes the future will bring. I have a
super in­ter­est­ing job lined up. It will be nice to be able to understand
again everything that is spoken around me. Having friends and family close by
will also be a huge plus.

Last weekend was a very “cultured” one for me. On Friday evening I went to a
2Cellos concert. And boy, did that concert rock. For those who don’t know them,
2Cellos is made by two cello players who take modern songs and adapt them for
the cello. They play a large variety of songs, from Michael Jackson’s Smooth
Criminal (their debut hit), to movie sound­tracks (Gladiator or Inception), to
rock songs (such as Thun­der­struck) to mellow songs such as U2’s With or without
you (aka the trailer song from Downton Abbey season 2).

To some extent, they remind me of the Piano Guys, to whose concert I …continue.

Three years ago today I started my job at Google. I had moved to Switzer­land two
days before, with two suitcases and a backpack. Then followed a lot of
adventure.

The third year was different. I started learning Swiss German, so that I can
better integrate and it payed off: I am no longer completely clueless as to what
Swiss people speak around, I am only mostly clueless.

I also got married to the most beautiful, loving and kind girl in the world,
Roda, who happens to be an amazing cook as well!

I also just did my 100th flight two days ago. I have flown more …continue.

Last Friday The Piano Guys were in Zürich. I found out about it from an ad on
Facebook. It's probably the second time in my life where an ad­ver­tise­ment there
is actually useful and relevant for me.

They started by playing Batman Evolution, which
goes through most of the Batman movies sound­tracks and weaves them together.

They explained how they like to combine their love for old classical music with
modern songs that are well known by young people. For example, they take every
kid's favourite song: Let It Go!
and combine it with Vivaldi's Winter.

Last month I exchanged the view that can be seen in the above image, for this
one:

I moved from Langnau am Albis, where I have lived for two years, to Wiedikon, a
district in Zürich. The old place has been officially the place where I've lived
the second most in my life :| I'll miss it, I had lots of good memories there.

But I got bored of the long commute (half an hour by train), so I moved to a
place 8 minutes walking from the office. And the week after I signed the
contract, I found out that my team …continue.

A bit more than two years ago I was anxiously heading towards the reception of
the Google Zurich office. I didn’t know what to expect, but I was very excited.
One year ago, I was oncall, dying of heat in my home. Today, I am on my last
oncall shift as an SRE, rejoicing that it’s not too hot and that I finally have
some quiet time to clean out my bookmarks and my inbox.

The last one year was very different from the previous one. The list of new
ex­pe­ri­ences continued, but not all of them were positive. There was the weird
re­al­iza­tion that I …continue.

The Israeli dance troupe Mayumana was in Zürich this weekend and I went to see
one of their shows. Colour me impressed. That was amazing. It was a really good
show.

The theme of the show was time. They started off by showing a video about flies
and how their perception of us is in slow motion, “so that when they see our
hand coming down to hit them, they know they still have time to finish lunch
before escaping”. So the troupe made its way onto the stage in slow motion.
Then various clocks starting ticking, slowly ac­cel­er­at­ing, and the dancers
started moving faster and faster, according …continue.

One year ago today I was dis­cov­er­ing, to my shock and horror, that my laptop's
charger doesn't fit in the Swiss socket. My phone charger did, but the laptop
plugs pins were 0.25 mm thicker, so they did not.

Several hours earlier I boarded the plane from Budapest to Zürich, feeling like
I'm going on an adventure. I did not know what
was waiting for me, I didn't even know what team I would be working with, but I
was very excited and looking forward to whatever was coming.

Looking back now, after a year, wow, it's been quite the adventure, so much
more than I could …continue.

Vintage movie made au­to­mat­i­cal­ly by Google+ from my photos and
videos

Every year in Zurich there is a holiday called Sech­seläuten, that celebrates the
end of winter and the coming of summer. It is held on the Monday that follows
Easter, so this year it was on the 13th of April (last year it was on the ~30th
of April, the day before my on-site interiews :D). In the city of Zurich it is
an official holiday, but it's only a "minor" one, so you can get only a half-day
off.

There is a huge parade, in which the 39 guilds from Zurich take part. They dress
up in …continue.

This month I have made a big change in my life, I switched jobs and I moved to
Zürich.

The Swiss are way more rigurous and strict then the Romanian people. Within 14
days of arriving in Switzer­land you have to register yourself at Kreisburo (if
you live in Zürich) or at the Gemeind (in other places). You have three months
to choose a health insurer or it will be chosen for you.

You have to buy special trash bags, that are quite expensive (something like 20
CHF for a pack of 10), because they include the recycling tax in them. So if you
do recycling, then you …continue.